" Through her sublimity?" "Through her noble, lonely life. Only--that's essential--it mustn't be lonely. It will be all right if she marries." "So we're to marry her?" "We're to marry her. It will be," Mrs. Assingham continued, "the great thing I can do." She made it out more and more. "It will make up." "Make up for what?" As she said nothing, however, his desire for lucidity renewed itself. "If everything's so all right what is there to make up for?" "Why, if I did do either of them, by any chance, a wrong. If I made a mistake." "You'll make up for it by making another?" And then as she again took her time: "I thought your whole point is just that you're sure." "One can never be ideally sure of anything. There are always possibilities." "Then, if we can but strike so wild, why keep meddling?" It made her again look at him. "Where would you have been, my dear, if I hadn't meddled with YOU?" "Ah, that wasn't meddling--I was your own. I was your own," said the Colonel, "from the moment I didn't object. "
― Henry James , The Golden Bowl